


Gentle

by Raberba girl (Raberba_girl)



Series: Welcome To Our World [2]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Dreamworks), Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - School, Friendship, Gen, Special education, Special needs children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-20 16:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3657150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raberba_girl/pseuds/Raberba%20girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU where Hiccup & Max (Toothless) are special needs children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gentle

**_Welcome To Our World: Gentle_ ** **(rough draft)**

**A DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon / Kingdom Hearts crossover fanfic by Raberba girl**

 

_For Autism Awareness Month, April 2015_

 

Summary: Modern AU where Hiccup & Toothless are eight-year-old special education students.

 

A/N: A while ago, I wrote a fanfic about Kingdom Hearts characters as special education students and people who work with them. I was really nervous about it, and very relieved at how warmly-received it was by readers. **I'm hoping that HTTYD readers won't be weirded out or take offense either, though this fic isn't nearly as good, since the focus is more on HiccTooth than on special education**. *sweatdrop*

 

**Also, this is really a complete HTTYD fic. It _technically_ has few Kingdom Hearts characters in it, which is why I labeled it a crossover, but they might as well be random OCs, because they didn't retain any of their KH flavor. :/**

**Jared is the dark Bewilderbeast, and Pinecone is my own character** (I only put him in this fic because I wanted a minimum of four students, and couldn't think of any canon characters who seemed to fit *sweatdrop*). **Neither of them got as much screentime as they probably should have.**

o.o.o

 

Every morning went almost the exact same way, much more like clockwork than any other year in Axel's experience.

 

Fifty percent of the class would already be ready and waiting as soon as any of their teachers were available to take charge of them. Alfred Wilder had to be at work early, and always did his best to personally take his two youngest foster-sons to school.

 

Both boys came from backgrounds of abuse. Eleven-year-old Jared, who had a very impressive build but had not lived under Mr. Wilder's care long enough to healthily fill out his large frame, was thickly covered in scars and prone to occasional violent outbursts. He was currently in the process of being evaluated to see if he should be moved into the behavior unit rather than the specialized instruction class.

 

Eight-year-old Max, whose most noticeable scars were a smattering of burn marks beneath his eyes, was much smaller but far more energetic. He seemed to almost constantly be in motion and had a nose for trouble, usually running his caretakers ragged. Jared might be dangerous during his violent spells, but at least he was obedient and calm in between.

 

Sure enough, the boys and their foster father were waiting outside the classroom when Axel approached. "Morning, Alfred," Axel greeted.

 

"Good morning, Mr. Axel," Mr. Wilder replied with a smile.

 

Jared opened his eyes and gave his teacher a sullen look. Max immediately dropped the handheld video game he'd been playing (the console was wrapped in a protective covering and barely made a noise when it hit the ground). He leaped at Axel and bounced around him like a maniac, chirping, "Hiccup? Mr. Axel? Mr. Axel go in classroom see Hiccup, Hiccup??? See Hiccup today!" he declared eagerly, his eyes shining.

 

" _Maybe_ , Max," Axel said patiently. " _Maybe_ Hiccup will be at school today. We'll have to wait and see." Hadley "Hiccup" Vast, almost the exact same age as Max (they had been born only a few days apart despite being completely unrelated), almost never missed school, but Max's meltdowns on the few occasions when Hiccup _was_ absent were so bad that it was dangerous to be too reassuring.

 

"Hiccup today school day _see Hiccup_ ," Max said happily, then started babbling in his personal language that he had apparently made up before he came to live with Mr. Wilder.

 

"Boys," Mr. Wilder said as Axel unlocked the classroom door, "I'm going to work now." Jared made a long growling sound and clung to him. "I'll see you when I come home, Jared," Mr. Wilder said gently.

 

"Noooo," Jared snarled into his shirt.

 

"See Hiccup!" Max chanted, dashing into the kitchen so he could look around the corner, then dashing back to look at Hiccup's desk and in his cubby as if he thought his friend would be there. "Hiccup! First breakfast, then Hiccup! Hiccup eat breakfast!"

 

"MAYBE Hiccup will come during breakfast," Axel called, turning on his computer and going to pull out a box of toys. "MAYBE."

 

"Maybe Hiccup breakfast~ Hiccup that I love. _Breakfast_. First choice then breakfast."

 

Axel held out the choice book. "Which toy do you want to play with, Max?"

 

"HICCUP!" Max shouted eagerly.

 

"Hiccup is not a toy. Which _toy_ do you want to play with, Max?" Axel asked again, holding the box right in his line of vision.

 

"Hiccup, Hiccup...choice Hiccup?"

 

"Hiccup is not a choice right now. "Which toy do you want to play with, Max?"

 

"First choice, then breakfast _Hiccup_."

 

"First choice, then breakfast. Which toy do you want to play with?"

 

Max restlessly grabbed a card with a picture of a toy fish on it and slapped it onto the sentence strip. He started reaching for the toy.

 

" _Ask_ first, Max."

 

"WANT FISH!" Max shouted.

 

"Ask the right way, Max." Axel waved the sentence strip in front of his face.

 

"Hiccup?!"

 

"Ask for your toy, Max."

 

Max suddenly seized the strip so hard that it crumpled in his grip, despite being heavily laminated. "I CHOOSE FISH!" he shouted without looking.

 

"Okay, Max! You chose the _fish_ , so you get to play with the _fish_!" Axel took the sentence strip back and then handed Max the toy that matched the card.

 

Max threw it halfway across the room. "BREAKFAST?! HICCUP?!"

 

"Go pick up the toy, Max."

 

Max threw himself down, burying his hands in his own hair. "Hiccup is not here yeeeeet!" he shouted.

 

"Go pick up the toy, Max."

 

Meanwhile, Mr. Wilder had stepped back so that he could look into Jared's eyes. "What kind of choices are you going to make today, Jared?"

 

" _Stay here_ ," Jared snarled. " _Don't leave_."

 

"I will see you again when I come home. What kind of choices are you going to make today?"

 

"You have to STAY!"

 

"What kind of choices are you going to make today, Jared?"

 

Jared's fingers curled tightly into his foster father's shirt. He stood silently for a long time, tense and hunched, occasionally making a high-pitched, distressed sound deep in his throat. Finally he whispered, "Choices."

 

"What kind of choices, Jared?"

 

"Choices...good choices," Jared finally ground out.

 

"I will be very proud of you if you make good choices today."

 

"I hate you!" Jared suddenly burst out. He flung himself away from his guardian as if it was too painful to even look at him anymore. The boy ran into the carpeted quiet room in a corner of the classroom and dropped to the floor, screaming and crying as he curled in on himself.

 

"Wow," Axel remarked, impressed. "He's actually letting you go today, huh?"

 

"We've been working on it," Mr. Wilder said, watching the boy with a sad smile. "It's good to see him make progress, I just wish it didn't hurt so much to watch."

 

"He'll be fine," Axel reassured him. "He usually does better once we get going and he has work to distract him."

 

"Oh," Mr. Wilder remembered, "I meant to tell you - he can still call me as a reward, but I wanted to start limiting it to only once a day. Will that cause any problems...?"

 

"No, it sounds good."

 

Mr. Wilder nodded and went over to the other boy. "Max, I'm going to work now."

 

"Hiccup is _not here_ right now," Max said despondently, flopping the fish across the table.

 

"What kind of choices are you going to make today, Max?"

 

"Choices...no Hiccup...."

 

Mr. Wilder repeated the question patiently.

 

"Good choices, then _Hiccup_??" Max asked, suddenly fixing him with an intense stare.

 

"If you make good choices, you will get rewards. _Maybe_ Hiccup will be one of them, but maybe _not_."

 

"Aaaaaahhhhh!!!"

 

"What's another reward that you would like to work for if you can't have Hiccup?"

 

Max cried as if his foster father had just confirmed that Hiccup wasn't going to show up at all that day.

 

"Max. Pick a reward to work for." Mr. Wilder held out a choice book, making sure that Hiccup's picture was removed first. Max still searched throughout all three pages, looking for it. "Pick a reward that's not Hiccup. Pick a _different_ reward, not Hiccup."

 

Max made a displeased screech and flung the book at him. Mr. Wilder calmly handed it back. "Make a choice, Max."

 

"Hiccup in your POCKET!" So apparently he'd seen the card he wanted being removed and tucked out of sight.

 

"Hiccup is _not a choice_ right now, Max. Make a _different choice_."

 

Max snarled, seized several cards, and defiantly slammed the whole handful of them down on the sentence strip.

 

"No, Max. Try again. _One_ choice."

 

Max burst into tears again. After a while, he took what looked like a random card and stuck it on the strip.

 

"What did you choose, Max?"

 

"Hiccuuuuup," Max sobbed.

 

Mr. Wilder held out the strip to him. "Read."

 

"My reward will be Hiccup."

 

"That's not what it says. Try again."

 

Max shrieked angrily and hit the strip, but Mr. Wilder maintained his grip on it.

 

"Read, Max."

 

"MY REWARD WILL BE COMPUTER," Max shouted.

 

"Very good reading, Max! If Hiccup is not here today, then your reward will be _computer_ time instead. You're going to work hard and be good so you will earn computer time, right?"

 

Max collapsed into his chest, clutching him for comfort. Mr. Wilder hugged him soothingly. "I'll see you when I get home from work, okay?"

 

"Hiccup in your pocket," Max said sulkily.

 

After Mr. Wilder left, Axel worked on some lesson preparation as he kept an eye on Max, who, between the fish toy and the cartoon playing on the projector screen, was just barely staying in his seat and fairly quiet. Jared's wild screams had softened into low, heartbroken sobs. "You doing okay in there, Jared?" Axel called, and was ignored.

 

It was only a few minutes before Aqua Rainfell, one of Axel's instructional assistants, arrived bright and early as usual. She had been a regular substitute in their classroom for a while, and had gotten hired full time the year after Saïx had left. Demyx, Axel's other assistant, was still very good at his job and a valuable asset, but he _did_ tend to show up in the mornings at the last minute or slightly late.

 

"Good morning, boys!" Aqua called cheerfully as she entered the room.

 

Max immediately bounced out of his chair and rushed at her. "Hiccup?!"

 

"I haven't seen Hiccup this morning, sweetie," Aqua said.

 

"No Hiccup!" Max cried in disappointment. Aqua tried to hug him, but he rushed away from her so he could fling himself back into his seat and sulk.

 

Aqua went to peer into the quiet room. "Jared, honey? Are you sad?" she said sympathetically, crouching down to pat his hair. With most people, he would have shoved their hands away, but he liked Aqua, so he simply ignored her. "Daddy had to go to work, huh."

 

"He left...me...he left me...he left me...."

 

"He'll come back home this evening, sweetie."

 

"He left me...."

 

"Are you ready to go get some breakfast, Jared?"

 

Jared said nothing, but his dull sobs stopped.

 

"BREAKFAST?!" Max shrieked, flying out his chair again. "Breakfast Hiccup?! Hiccup?!?!"

 

Aqua took the boys to the cafeteria, leaving Axel behind for a precious half hour or so of solitude for him to get some paperwork done. Jared hunched over his tray, mechanically spooning bites of food into his mouth. Max, too wound up to eat yet, mashed his food around his tray as he chattered in a nonstop stream of mixed wanting-Hiccup words and his made-up language.

 

At long last, Stoick Vast came striding through the cafeteria doors, practically dragging his small son behind him. Hiccup stumbled in his wake, eyes on the ground, unresisting but unable to easily keep up with his father's much longer and faster stride.

 

"Good morning, Hiccup!" Aqua called, closing her arms firmly around the delightedly shrieking, struggling Max.

 

"HICCUP!" Max screamed in a joyful frenzy. "HICCUP! HICCUP! HICCUP! HICCUP!"

 

Hiccup seemed to hunch in on himself as if trying to hide from the noise, his free hand pressing hard against his ear.

 

"Good morning, Ms. Rainfell," Stoick boomed, his deep voice able to drown out even Max's screams.

 

"Hello."

 

Stoick frowned thunderously at Max, who didn't even seem to notice him at first. "Listen to me, you," he growled. "You stay AWAY from my son, do you hear me?"

 

"That's Hiccup!" Max shouted at him excitement. "There there there there! Hiccup!"

 

"You keep your hands _off_ my son! You keep your TEETH off my son, do you understand me?!"

 

"Hiccup~!"

 

Stoick turned his fierce scowl on Aqua. "If I see a single bite mark on my son again, or a scratch, or a--"

 

"We take the students' safety very seriously, Mr. Vast. Would you like to speak to Mr. Hayes?"

 

"I think I will," Stoick said ominously.

 

"He's in the classroom. You can leave Hiccup here, he'll be fine."

 

"Where's Demyx?" Stoick demanded.

 

"Oh...he should be here any minute now...."

 

Stoick stayed, planted protectively in front of his son and glaring at Max the whole time, until Demyx arrived. It was only a short time, but still, Demyx was later than usual. "Heeeeyy, kiddos!" the young man greeted enthusiastically. Jared growled and hunched lower over his food.

 

"LOOK MR. DEMYX MY HICCUP, THERE, THERE!" Max cried, pointing.

 

"I _see_ him, Maxie!"

 

"Listen, you," Stoick growled. Demyx looked up at him and gulped. "You assistants are supposed to be here by 7:00 a.m., right?"

 

"Uh...well, um, I--"

 

"It is SEVEN-FIFTEEN. _That boy_ ," he stabbed a finger at Max, "is always here at the crack of dawn, ready to _menace my son_ , and you're not even _here_. Do you expect this young woman to handle that...that _boy_ , all by herself?" Stoick snarled. He went on in that vein for a while until Demyx looked like he wanted to melt into the floor. At last, Stoick announced that he had to get to work, patted Hiccup on the head, and marched thunderously out of the cafeteria.

 

"Awww, Hiccup, your daddy hates meeee," Demyx whined playfully. Hiccup, who was curled up with his head buried in his arms, made no response.

 

"MY HICCUP!"

 

"Wow, you're still going, huh," Demyx laughed.

 

"My arms are getting tired," Aqua said. "Demyx, can you please hold him for a while?"

 

"Sure!"

 

Gradually, Max's struggling ceased, and his excited, frustrated cries lapsed into distracted babbling. He started playing with his food again.

 

As the noise diminished, Hiccup started showing signs of life. He began by stealing glances at the other boy, then creeping down the row of empty chairs until he was sitting in the one next to Max.

 

"HICCUP!" Max screamed, suddenly realizing that his favorite person was right beside him. Hiccup dove back into the refuge of his arms. "Hiccup~!" Max chirped, snatching at him happily but roughly.

 

" _Gentle_ , Max," Aqua ordered. " _Gentle hands_."

 

"Gentle hands. Gentle hands." Max's snatching turned to patting. He patted Hiccup's head and back and shoulders. "Hiccup? Hiccup good morning?"

 

Hiccup, still with his face buried in his arms, inched a couple of chairs away again. Then he raised his head and cautiously signed, _"Good morning."_

 

"Hiccup! Hiccup~ Hiccup~ Hiccup~ Hiccup~ Hiccup~~" Max sang. His teachers had dubbed it his 'Hiccup Song,' since it always had the same noticeable tune. He grabbed a handful of his cereal and held it out, making sounds in his language that sounded like an offering.

 

Hiccup slowly accepted the handful of cereal. _"Gentle hands,"_ he signed after he had eaten it.

 

Max, who barely understood sign language but had a knack for understanding Hiccup anyway, cooed at him. After a while, Hiccup inched back to the seat beside his friend, and the two began eating food off each other's trays. That was when the teachers knew it was safe to let Max go.

 

Like clockwork. Every single morning.

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

This was the only year Axel had ever used a harness for a student that was actually for the sake of a _different_ child. But Hiccup's mother had given permission, the boy himself never seemed to mind, the most effective way to keep Max in line really _was_ to make him hold onto Hiccup, and it was safest for Hiccup and easiest on his clothes if Max had something to hold onto that wasn't flesh, hair, or clothing.

 

"Get in line, Max," Aqua said when breakfast was over.

 

"Hiccup, get in line! Hiccup!" Max held onto Hiccup's harness, bouncing in place and singing his Hiccup Song. When the class started moving out of the cafeteria, Max often stopped to be distracted by one thing or another, and Hiccup would get him moving again by heaving at the harness like a dog walking its master.

 

"Classroom?! Go to class?!"

 

 _"School today. Do work. Play with No Teeth my friend,"_ Hiccup signed. Max was behind him and didn't understand Sign anyway, but he still knew that his friend was talking to him.

 

"First work, then Hiccup! First work! Then HICCUP~!"

 

They got to the classroom and settled around the table. The last student, ten-year-old Pine, made it in just before the bell rang, smiling around amiably as his brother helped him hang up his backpack. He went to give his classmates their good-morning hugs. Jared growled at him, but didn't have time to retaliate before the boy moved on to Hiccup, who closed his fingers so softly around handfuls of Pine's shirt that it could barely be called a 'hug,' and Max, who squeezed him back hard enough to force an alarmed grunt from Pine's lungs.

 

After the school announcements were over, Axel got everyone started on calendar time. "Okay! _Hi_ there, boys! I'm so happy to see all of you~! Good morning, Jared!"

 

Jared grunted, still in low spirits at being separated from his beloved foster father.

 

"I said good morning, Jared!"

 

"Good morning," Jared growled.

 

"All right, man! Hey, Pine, good morning!"

 

Pine responded in a questioning mumble that only sounded like 'Good morning' if that was what one was expecting him to say.

 

"Hiccup, hey! Good morning!"

 

_"Good morning."_

 

"Aaaaaaand, Max! Good morning, buddy!"

 

"Good morning, morning, Hiccup is here is a GOOD MORNING!"

 

"It sure is! Okay, guys! Let's see who's at school today!"

 

Axel drew a picture card, coincidentally finding it to be his own. "Oh, hey, look, it's me! I am here at school today, right?"

 

 _"Teacher is at school today,"_ Hiccup signed, as Pine grunted excitedly and pointed at Axel.

 

"That's right, I _am_ here at school today!" Axel stuck his picture on the chart under the 'At School' column. "All right, who's next? Oooh, who is this?"

 

Pine excitedly leaped in his seat and reached for the card.

 

"Pine? Is it _Pine's_ card? Why, yes, it is!"

 

When it was Hiccup's turn, Max clapped in excitement and crowed, "Hiccup and Max are at school today!"

 

" _Hiccup_ is at school today," Axel corrected, nodding at Hiccup with a smile as the boy echoed his words in Sign. "Hey, Max, looks like you're the last one, kiddo!" He held out the card with Max's picture on it.

 

Max seized the card and ran to smack it onto the chart, so closely to Hiccup's that the cards overlapped. "Me and Hiccup are at school today!!"

 

"Max, you say, 'I am at school today.'"

 

"I am at school today with Hiccup!"

 

"You say, 'I am at school today.'"

 

"At school with _Hiccup_ ~!"

 

"'I am at school today.'"

 

"I am at school today!" Max cried, now sounding a little frantic. "I am at school today and Hiccup is at school today!!"

 

"...Close enough," Axel chuckled. "But seriously, kid, we're going to have to do something about this co-dependency thing of yours...."

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

Max was the only child Axel had seen who actually worked _better_ when he was distracted by his favorite thing, rather than worse.

 

When it was time to do schoolwork, Jared worked steadily, matching cards with science facts printed on them to the items they corresponded to. Pine labored over his, struggling with each simple math problem even though the problems and solutions were color-coded.

 

Axel had to sit with Max and at least go through the motions of trying to get him to work. Max would scream and refuse to work and scream and throw his folders and try to chew on them or tear them and scream some more. There was only one thing that was known to motivate him to get his work done, but unfortunately they had to wait a while for it, and Axel couldn't let Max get away with thinking he could just do nothing in the meantime.

 

"Dragon, Max. Where's the other dragon?"

 

"RAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!"

 

Hiccup sat hunched at his own desk. He had the highest level work for his age and usually got it done without much prodding, but the sound of his friend's screams made him restless. A few times, he tried to peek around the edges of his study carrel. "Do your work, Hiccup," Aqua or Demyx would admonish him when they noticed; he'd make an unhappy whine and obey.

 

Hiccup was also the fastest. As soon as he dumped his final completed folder into the basket, he sprang out of his chair and paced restlessly, not bothering to look back at Aqua checking his work and then resetting it when it was found to be flawless.

 

Max calmed down immediately upon noticing that Hiccup was done. "Hiccup!" he cried in relief. Hiccup paused by his chair, lightly snatched a handful of his hair, then tried to keep walking; Max seized him hard and buried his face in Hiccup's ribcage for a minute.

 

"Max, let go of Hiccup. Do your work."

 

"DO YOUR WORK HICCUP!" Max shouted, then seized a card and slapped it into its correct place on the folder.

 

"Good job, Max! Here you go; what's the next one?"

 

It went on like that for the next ten minutes. Hiccup never looked at Max, but simply kept pacing restlessly across that half of the classroom. Occasionally he'd lunge forward or flap his hands or stop dead as if focused on something invisible, or he'd grab gently at Max or sign things like, _"Hurry hurry finish"_ to the wall.

 

Max, for his part, seemed all too happy to get his work done when his friend was hovering nearby waiting for him. He no longer had to have a teacher sitting right next to him, but they kept an eye out to stop him whenever he tried to bolt out of his chair before finishing.

 

"Green, Hiccup! Green frog is green!" Max would shout at Hiccup across the room, then dive to match the card. Sometimes he'd swipe at Hiccup and giggle when the other boy passed by, then clap his hands and match another card. One time he grabbed Hiccup with both hands, shouted, "Hiccup doing my work, red bird red bird tweet tweet _do your work_!" into his shirt, then danced two card across the table and abruptly slapped them both in place. As soon as Hiccup was released, he resumed pacing as if nothing had happened.

 

"Almost done, Max. Just one more."

 

"ONE MORE HICCUP WAIT!"

 

As soon as Max had finished, he flung his last folder into the basket and shot out of his seat; Axel and Demyx had to wrestle him back into it. " _Wait_ , Max."

 

Max screamed, then burst into furious tears and struggled. Hiccup winced and pressed both hands to his ears and bowed his head, making an unhappy thrumming sound.

 

"I'm just checking your work, sweetie, just checking your work," Aqua crooned, going through Max's folders as quickly as possible. "Oooh, honey, this one isn't right."

 

"First work then HICCUP!" Max screamed.

 

"Fix your work, Max," Axel said. "Do your work _right_ , and _then_ Hiccup."

 

"Max, honey, look at this. This egg has five dots, but this one only has three. Where is it supposed to go instead?"

 

"WANT MY _HICCUP_!"

 

Hiccup picked up a book and dropped it on the floor. Then he hopped a little, dropped into a crouch, and lightly beat his fist against the side of his head, making an urgent "Uhmm uhmm uhmm" noise.

 

"FIX IIIIIT!" Max wailed, grabbing frantically at the folder. He rushed through the corrections, stealing desperate glances at Hiccup between each one, and Hiccup very slowly put the book back on the table, dropping it again several times in the process as if on purpose.

 

When all of Max's work was completed correctly, his teachers praised him, gave him verbal permission to leave his desk, and released him.

 

"FINIIIIIIIIIIIISHED!!!"

 

Both boys immediately dove toward the toy area. Hiccup came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the carpet and clutched at his head, turning uncertainly as he stared at the floor with a huge grin on his face. Max leaped around him in an erratic orbit, screaming with joy and shouting words in his made-up language. "Hiccup!" he shouted in between his babbling, "Finished my work play with _Hiccup_!!"

 

When he was marginally calmer, he jumped straight at Hiccup and knocked him to the floor. _"Gentle hands gentle hands gentle hands,"_ Hiccup signed urgently.

 

"Gentle hands Hiccup," Max purred, and closed his teeth on Hiccup's arm.

 

"Max, NO," Aqua said sharply. Max's bites had been very gentle for weeks now, nothing like the damage he'd caused at the beginning of the school year, but they couldn't take any chances. "NO biting."

 

"No biting, gentle hands my Hiccup." Max pushed at Hiccup's shoulders so he could rest his head on the boy's chest. "Thump, thump, thump, thump," he said, imitating the sound of the heartbeat he must be hearing.

 

Hiccup murmured to him. One of the many extraordinary things about the relationship these two children was that Hiccup was non-verbal, he had never been heard to speak English - but he _spoke_ to Max, and Max only. Granted, it wasn't any recognizable language, and it didn't even sound like Max's made-up language, either. Yet, gibberish as it was, it was still _words_ , sentences with rhythm and cadence. Hiccup would speak his own made-up language to no one else, not even his mother.

 

"Five more minutes, guys," Axel warned.

 

"Five more minutes, no more play!" Max cried. He sprang to the toy shelf, dragged out a box of colored links, and dumped them out on the floor.

 

"Max! Don't dump the box like that!"

 

"Play with Hiccup!" Max shouted.

 

Hiccup sat there, industriously connecting link after link after link for almost the whole five minutes. Max linked about two of them before he got bored and started to crawl around restlessly, pouncing on Hiccup and giggling to himself.

 

"Hiccup? Play with Hiccup?"

 

Hiccup put down the links long enough to sign, _"Play with No Teeth my friend."_ Max bit the chain Hiccup was making. Hiccup tugged it out of his mouth and added another link.

 

"Blue!" Max yelled. He handed a red link to Hiccup, who attached it to the chain. "Red!" He continued supplying links to Hiccup, announcing the color of each one as he did so. "Purple! Orange! Yellow!" He got bored of that, too, and rubbed at Hiccup's freckles. In return, Hiccup rubbed at his burn scars in a friendly way. (Max would rage at or shy away from or at least flinch whenever anyone else tried to touch his scars, but he never seemed to be fazed in the slightest if it was Hiccup doing the touching.)

 

The timer went off. "All right, guys, break time's finished! Clean up, time for group work~"

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

It happened just as they were coming in from recess. As Max flung open the classroom door and ran inside with Hiccup, followed more sedately by Jared, an assistant from one of the gen ed classrooms came bustling up. " _Axel_!" she called excitedly, " _There_ you are! You and Demyx still have to sign the card, Moni is having her baby~!"

 

She was a chatty woman, and Axel and Demyx got caught up in it despite themselves. Aqua wasn't there at the moment, having taken Pine directly from the playground to get his medication. All three of them always tried so hard to be careful, but when the most conscientious one of their number was gone and the routine was disrupted....

 

Hiccup's scream instantly jolted them to their senses.

 

"No no no no no," Demyx chanted apprehensively as they turned around, but then Max broke into a series of horrified screams that drowned him out, and their fears were confirmed.

 

"Didn't mean to didn't mean to sorry sorry sorry Hiccup gentle hands gentle _hands_!" Max shrieked, backing away and flapping his own hands in distress.

 

"Hiccup, Hiccup, let me see, kiddo, hey, let me see," Axel crooned, very gently prying the boy's hand away from the soft underside of his arm. "Fffffflaming _pants_ ," Axel hissed, hard-pressed to keep from cussing.

 

"Oh nooo!" Demyx exclaimed in dismay. Gouged into Hiccup's arm were two long, angry red streaks, and a third shorter and lighter one. Beads of blood were starting to stand out on the deepest scratch. Hiccup's cries of pain faded to whimpers, but the damage was already done.

 

Now it was Axel muttering "No, no, no, no" under his breath as he automatically started to tug Hiccup over to the sink and then remembered that he ought to take him to the nurse instead...where the incident would be documented and reported to Hiccup's parents. Stoick could and would cause a _lot_ of trouble if his wife wasn't able to keep him in check. "Aww, crrrr--" The kids would potentially repeat anything said in front of them. "Cr, um, cream, ice cream. _Argh_."

 

Max was now sobbing, rocking back and forth as he choked out, "Gentle hands gentle hands _sorry_ Hiccup _sorry_ bad Max bad Max bad Max HURT MY HICCUP NOOOOO!"

 

Even if Stoick wasn't an issue, there was still the fact that whenever Max hurt Hiccup, Hiccup's cries would set off Max, and it was very difficult to handle the boy when he got hysterical like that. It wasn't even a useful teaching moment, either, since Max obviously knew exactly what he had done wrong and was always genuinely remorseful.

 

"Quiet room, Max," Demyx said. "Ssshh, it's okay, quiet room." Max screamed and jumped and didn't go near the carpeted room where he could express his feelings safely.

 

 _"Hurts,"_ Hiccup signed shakily, tears running down his cheeks. _"Hurt me."_

 

"Okay, yes, I'm sorry, buddy, he hurt you, I'm really sorry, okay, oh man, aaaaggghhh, Max...."

 

"Ack, Axel!" Demyx was struggling to keep Max from clawing at his own skin.

 

"Max, _gentle hands_ ," Axel ordered sharply. "Gentle hands on _you_ , too, not just--" Saying Hiccup's name would make it worse. "Not just your friend."

 

"Gentle hands my friend gentle gentle GENTLE!"

 

Axel took Hiccup to the nurse and begged her to not call Stoick. "Here, look, I'll call his mom myself, I just, please, _don't_ leave anything on a recording that...just-- Please." Valka didn't answer her phone, so Axel left a very vague voicemail. "Hi, Valka...um, this is Axel, and, I just...wanted to let you know how Hiccup's doing...thanks, bye." She would know exactly what he meant, and would hopefully have enough time to prepare.

 

By the time they returned to the classroom, Hiccup seemed to have gotten over his shock, though he was very quiet and subdued as he hunched over his bandaged arm. Axel found that Jared had taken advantage of the chaos to get on the computer and play games. Pine was huddled unhappily in Aqua's lap. Aqua, as best she could while simultaneously trying to comfort an upset child, helped Demyx guard the quiet room where Max was corralled.

 

Max was slumped on the floor crying hopelessly, but when he saw Hiccup, he surged to his feet and Demyx only just barely managed to catch him in time. "Hiccup?! Hiccup?! Hiccup?!"

 

Obviously Max's clip would be moved straight to red on the behavior chart, and the incident reported to his guardian, but by far the most effective punishment came from Hiccup. As soon as Max called to him, Hiccup deliberately stepped behind Axel and cowered.

 

Max screamed in horrified dismay and flung himself back into a sobbing heap. He half-heartedly tried to claw at himself again, not resisting when Demyx held his hands to stop him.

 

Since the afternoon was pretty much shot, Axel gave Hiccup some folders to work on, struggled to get Jared away from the computer and working on folders as well, and Aqua managed to coax Pine to do the same.

 

After a while, Max ventured out of the quiet room and crept toward his friend. "Hiccup? Hiccup??"

 

Hiccup dropped to the floor, out in the open this time but defensively curled up. Max cried and circled him, reaching out desperately but not actually touching him. "Sorry, Hiccup, Max is sorry! Bad Max, hurt you, _bad_! Gentle hands!"

 

Hiccup rolled over, turning his back to him. But he did stretch out a bit, and the more relaxed pose seemed to be an invitation for physical contact. Max draped across his upper body and ducked his head to peer into Hiccup's face. "Good Hiccup, gentle?"

 

Hiccup babbled softly at him.

 

"Sorry, Max is sorry! Bad Max!"

 

_"Hurting. Sad."_

 

Max picked up Hiccup's injured arm, crooning to it and cradling it as if it was a baby. "Band-aid get better, Max is sorry, bad hurting, no more hurting, I love you my Hiccup, _sorry_." Hiccup watched him, looking completely relaxed now. "No biting! _No bite_! Gentle hands! Be nice to Hiccup."

 

o.o.o.o.o

 

After school, Pine was the first one to get picked up. Valka arrived less than a minute afterward, and Hiccup's often expressionless face lit up when he saw his mother.

 

Max had the opposite reaction, shrieking in dismay and running to hide behind Axel and then immediately rushing to Valka and then turning away and wailing into his hands.

 

"Max," Valka said gently, "are you upset?"

 

"UPSET! BAD MAX!"

 

"Did you do something bad today, Max?"

 

The boy sobbed.

 

Wide-eyed, Hiccup grunted anxiously and tugged at his mother's shirt. She squeezed his shoulder with the arm she still had wrapped around him, and smiled reassuringly. "Max," she said, "what did you do?"

 

"Hurt Hicuuuuuup," Max wailed.

 

"You hurt my Hiccup?"

 

"Hurt my Hicuuuuuup!"

 

"Why did you do that, Max?"

 

"Bad Max, Max is sorry!"

 

 _"Mama,"_ Hiccup signed, _"No Teeth is sorry, no more hurting."_

 

"I know, baby, but I'm very worried. Daddy will be very upset."

 

Hiccup hurried to Max and wrapped his arms around him.

 

Max anxiously patted his hair. "Mad at me? Hiccup is mad at me?"

 

_"I love you, it's okay. Daddy is mad at you, I'm scared."_

 

"Mad at me?"

 

Valka hugged both boys. "It'll be okay. I'll talk to Daddy; I won't let him take you away from Max."

 

"I've been collecting a lot of video footage of their interactions," Axel offered, "the good parts where they obviously get along so well."

 

"That will really help. I've been working on Stoick, I'm _trying_ , he just...can be so stubborn...."

 

Axel looked at Max and sadly ruffled his hair. "You can't be rough with Hiccup, buddy. Your foster sibs can take it, but he can't, okay?"

 

"Gentle hands," Max agreed, petting Hiccup's hair.

 

 _"No Teeth is my friend ALWAYS,"_ Hiccup insisted, signing to the empty space between Valka and Axel as if he was talking to someone else. _"Always, always, my friend No Teeth that I like best."_

 

o.o.o

 

Author's Notes: I don't think this fic is as good overall as the previous one was, probably because in this one, all I really cared about was Hiccup & Toothless, and it shows. *sweatdrop*

 

**Hiccup & Toothless's relationship in all my fanfiction is always completely platonic.**

 

In the eleventh book (I think) of the HTTYD series (which is _very_ different than the DreamWorks animated counterpart, btw), Toothless's true breed is revealed. It's a spoiler, so I won't say what it is here, but that's where I got the name Max for when he appears in my modern AU fanfics. In my canon-based fanfiction, I came up with the name Squirt for the dark Bewilderbeast, but I'll use Jared if he appears in modern AUs. It comes from a joke in my fic _A Small Addition To Berk's Flock_. :p Hiccup's name is Hadley because it sounds like "Haddock"...kind of. Pinecone's name is Pine, and the good Bewilderbeast's name is Alfred Wilder ("Alpha Bewilderbeast," lol).

 

Students aren't allowed to share food, but it's mostly a concern when the food is from a child's home. I've never seen anyone make a fuss about it when the food is from the cafeteria and the child willingly offers it.

 

For people who've read my other fanfiction, Squirt doesn't have any particular attachment to Hiccup in this AU, since it was the good Bewilderbeast who saved him from Drago instead. Also, this fic takes place after _Welcome To Our World_ , after all the students in that fic have either graduated or transferred to different schools.

 

Like Sora in the other fic, Hiccup is non-verbal, but he's not deaf. He can hear and understand spoken language, but he can't speak it himself (unless it's his made-up language that he reserves for Toothless).

 

Again, I have no excuse for writing this fic when there's so much other stuff I should be working on instead....

I've been wanting to write a HTTYD special education fic for a while now, but for some reason I didn't get any ideas for it until the other day when I realized that World Autism Awareness Day (April 2nd) is coming up really soon. I drafted this fic in, like, two days. ^^;


	2. Play Date

**_Welcome To Our World: Play Date_ ** **(rough draft)**

**A DreamWorks' _How to Train Your Dragon_ fanfic by Raberba girl**

 

Summary:  Hiccup's parents take him to Max's house for a play date so that Valka can show Stoick how well the boys get along.

 

A/N:  Max is Toothless, Alfred is the Bewilderbeast king, and Jared (who's barely in this fic) is the dark Bewilderbeast.

 

o.o.o

 

Stoick stayed for a while after he took Hiccup to school, watching Max with a heavy, almost sad look on his face.  Finally he went away, half-heartedly thinking of more reasons to protest even as he knew that he'd probably already lost the war.  He could not say no to his beloved wife about things she really cared about, and he had a sinking feeling that the hyperactive little menace called "Max" would eventually become his son.

 

That day was still distant, though, and he hadn't completely given up in the meantime.  Not _completely_ , but it wasn't like he'd won, either.  He found himself, on a sunny Saturday morning, driving his wife and son to the only neighborhood in town more upscale than his own.  Hiccup, every inch of his flesh covered with clothing except for his fingers and face, gazed out of the window, slowly twirling a leaf in his hand and occasionally touching it to his cheek.

 

When they pulled into the driveway, Hiccup ducked down to hide from the three girls shrieking as they raced in and out of the arcs of water shot by a sprinkler in the front yard.  Stoick let Valka reach Hiccup's car door first.  "Hiccup!" she said brightly, "we're here to see Max!"

 

He ducked away and hid his face.

 

"See, Val?" Stoick pointed out.  "He doesn't _want_ to see Max."

 

"Of course he wants to see Max; there's something else wrong."  She crouched down and gently tugged at Hiccup, coaxing him until he reluctantly turned his face to her.  "Sweetie, it's Max!"  She held out a picture of his friend.  "See?  Max."

 

 _"No school today,"_ Hiccup signed sharply.

 

"I know, sweetheart, but you don't have to see Max only at school.  We came to visit Max here at his house, remember?  Max's house.  We're here to play with Max."

 

A few tears dripped down Hiccup's expressionless face.  _"No Teeth friend No Teeth friend no school friend?!"_

 

"Yes, sweetheart.  It's all right.  Here, give me your hand."  She helped him out of the car.  Stoick felt gratified when Hiccup raised his arms to him, asking to be picked up.  Stoick obliged, and Hiccup clung tightly to him as they walked past the yelling, laughing girls and up to the front door.

 

It was a heavily pierced teenage girl with bright green hair who answered the door, giving the Vasts a disgusted look.

 

"Hello--" Valka started.

 

"AL, PEOPLE ARE HERE," the girl bellowed over her shoulder, then stalked away, leaving the door open.

 

"Hello?" Valka called.

 

"Shut up," shouted one of the two boys lounging in the living room, playing a video game on an enormous television.

 

Stoick raised an eyebrow at his wife, who gave him a quelling look.

 

Jared shuffled past, eyed the Vasts furtively, and continued on at a faster pace without pausing or speaking.

 

There were running footsteps, and Max burst into view.  "HICCUP HICCUP HICCUP HICCUP HICCUP HICCUP HICCUP!" he screamed joyfully at the top of his lungs.

 

Stoick barely registered Hiccup's trembling, because even as the same video game-playing boy shouted for Max to shut up, the other one dove silently over the back of the couch and tackled Max, trapping him in a headlock and starting to pummel him hard with the other fist.  Before Stoick and Valka, too stunned to react, could get their wits together enough to intervene, Max had managed to kick the boy in the groin.  As his attacker stumbled with a cry, Max whirled in his loosened grip and set upon the boy with astonishing speed, snarling and biting and clawing like an animal.

 

Alfred finally hurried into view, with a toddler in his arms and a protesting seven-year-old entirely covered with flour trailing in his wake.  "MAX," Alfred thundered.

 

Max immediately broke away from the boy, screaming in a horrified panic as he careened wildly around the room like a destructive pinball.

 

"Max, go to your room," Alfred ordered firmly.

 

"HICUUUUUUPPPPP, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

 

"First five-minute cooldown, then Hiccup."

 

Max immediately raced away.

 

"Alfreeeed," the other boy was wailing, pathetically holding out his scratched arms, "Max attacked meeeeee, look, I'm bleediiiing!"

 

"Did you provoke him, Xavier?" Alfred asked evenly.

 

"No!"

 

"He was hitting him," Valka said faintly.  Stoick was clutching Hiccup in a protective embrace.  Soothed by the pressure, Hiccup had gone still.

 

"We'll talk in a minute, Xavier," Alfred said.  He handed the toddler to Valka.  "Will you hold her for a minute?  Make yourself comfortable anywhere; as soon as she finishes her bottle, you can take Hiccup up to see Max."

 

"I don't think we'll be staying," Stoick burst out.

 

Alfred gave him a cool look.  "That's your choice, but you'll hurt Hiccup if you leave now."

 

"Don't tell me how to raise my own son!  You can't even keep your own children under control!"

 

"Stoick," Valka murmured, rocking the wary-looking toddler, "they're all foster children.  He deliberately takes the ones who have trouble being placed anywhere else."

 

"Er...oh."

 

Valka turned to Alfred.  "Where's Tiff?"

 

"She couldn't come today, her daughter fell sick."  Then, for Stoick's benefit, "Two of the girls in the front are neighbors, they came to play with Sascia.  And this little one--" he indicated the toddler, "--was just an emergency overnighter.  They're coming to pick her up this afternoon."

 

After Alfred had led away the protesting boy who'd attacked Max and the whining flour-covered girl, Stoick and Valka awkwardly sat down on a sofa as far away from the TV as they could get.  Hiccup kept his hands tightly pressed over his ears, his fingers occasionally twitching as he tried to call for his friend but couldn't free his hands to do so.

 

Once the toddler had finished drinking her bottle, she wiggled to get down, heading unsteadily toward the kitchen.  Valka found Alfred to take charge of her again, then led the way upstairs, where she followed the sound of Max's sobbing until she found the bedroom where he was curled up tightly in a corner.  "Max?" she called.

 

He screamed.  "Hiccup no Hiccup no Hiccup noooooooooo, go awaaaaaaaaay, bad Max NO!"  He suddenly lunged for a magazine and violently ripped it up, his face a rictus of fury.

 

Valka stared at him, wondering in dismay if it was too dangerous and they'd have to leave early after all.  Then Hiccup whimpered.

 

Soft as the sound was, its effect on Max was electric.  He froze instantly, then raised his head and stared incredulously at Hiccup, who was stealing glances at him in between making soft distressed noises at the wall over Stoick's shoulder.  _'He didn't know Hiccup was still here,'_ Valka realized.

 

Max dashed at Stoick and urgently reached for his friend, but Stoick, apparently thinking he was dodging an attack, moved sharply backward and waved his arm to fend off the boy.  Hiccup shrieked angrily.

 

"No, Stoick, it's all right," Valka said quickly.  "Put him down."

 

"Are you _crazy_?!"

 

"HICCUP!" Max shouted.

 

 _"GENTLE HANDS!"_ Hiccup Sign-shouted urgently back.

 

"Max, gentle hands," Valka translated.

 

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!"  Max raced around the room, almost as destructive in his joy as he was in his anger, but Valka was relieved to see that he at least had enough self-control to direct his excess of passion away from Hiccup.

 

"Stoick, put him down."

 

" _No_ , Val!  We're leaving!"

 

"Stoick, _please trust me_."

 

Valka finally managed to convince Stoick to hand her their son.  She sat on the bed with Hiccup in her arms, watching Max as they waited for him to calm down.  He raced around and around and around the room, yelling happily, showing no sign of slowing.

 

 _"Friend my friend play together happy scary gentle hands No Teeth,"_ Hiccup signed conversationally.  Then, as he started to get impatient, _"Too fast STOP."_

 

"Max," Valka said.

 

Max flung himself at her feet and tightly clutched her legs, which meant his face was practically pressed into Hiccup's knee.  _"Gentle?"_ Hiccup wondered, then cautiously patted Max's hair.

 

Max burst into tears and climbed onto the bed and grabbed at Hiccup, moving his mouth toward the other boy but catching himself in time.  He held Hiccup's arm with both hands and shouted in frustration, "No bite, Max, NO BITE!"

 

"Are you very excited, Max?" Valka asked.

 

"EXCITED!"

 

"This is the first time you've seen Hiccup outside of school, huh."

 

"NO SCHOOOOOL!" Max scrambled down and started running circuits around the room again.

 

Hiccup squirmed to get down and crawled on all fours to reach a bucket of toys.  He took hold of the closest toy and threw it into the center of the room.  Then another.  Then another.

 

"I think that Hiccup is getting impatient," Valka said.

 

" _Hiccup_ ," Max said in a hoarse whisper.  He dropped to all fours and scuttled over to his friend, nuzzled him, then plopped down, lying right on top of him.  Both boys went completely still and silent for a solid two minutes.  The sudden calm was almost eerie.  Hiccup, looking perfectly relaxed and content, idly brushed his palm over the carpet.  Max looked almost asleep, except when he opened his eyes and sniffed at Hiccup's hair.  "My Hiccup that I love," Max whispered.

 

Hiccup grunted and tried to get up.  Max rolled off and started petting him, purring, "Gentle hands."

 

Hiccup picked up a torn piece of magazine page and held it up to his face, inspecting it closely.  He neither looked up nor resisted as Max pushed him down to lie on his stomach, then started lining up cars on his back.  After the third or fourth car, Hiccup frowned and peered over his shoulder to look, causing the cars to drop to the floor.

 

"Stay _still_ , Hiccup," Max ordered.  Hiccup lay back down, rested his head on his arm, and used his other hand to stim off the carpet again as Max resumed lining up cars.

 

"One, one little car, ha ha ha," Max chattered to himself as he worked.  "Two, two little cars, ha ha ha _._ "  He giggled for real."One two three cars on Hiccup, _more_!"  He clapped his hands, then added another car.

 

Valka gave her husband a triumphant look.

 

"Did you just _forget_ everything that came before this?" he pouted.

 

After a while, Max hopped to his feet and, at quite a normal pace, trotted out of the bedroom.  Hiccup hurriedly scrambled up to follow.  When he bumped into Max, Max whirled and hugged him tightly, then took his hand and tugged him toward the stairs.  A few steps away, Hiccup stopped dead, staring in wide-eyed alarm at the staircase, and gave a little grunt of protest when Max tried to pull him forward.

 

"Go downstairs Hiccup, eat healthy snacks for growing bodies!" Max announced.

 

Hiccup rushed back to his father, who didn't pick him up.  "Three steps, Hiccup," Stoick told him.  "Three steps first, and _then_ I'll carry you."

 

Hiccup shrieked and collapsed, hiding his face.

 

"Oh, sweetheart," Valka started to say, kneeling, but Max reached the little boy first.

 

"Hiccup is scared?!  Hiccup doesn't like it?!"

 

"Hiccup is frightened of stairs," Valka told him.  "But he has to practice and learn."

 

"Practice and learn!  Oh no, Hiccup, oh no, Hiccup, oh no, Hiccup!"

 

"I'll be right here, baby," Valka said to her son.  "Mama and Daddy and Max will all be right here, we'll help."

 

"You'll get a treat if you make it down three steps, Hiccup.  Do you want a treat?"

 

They managed to coax the little boy back to his feet and forward, but he clutched hard at his parents and kept balking, his eyes wide with fear.

 

"Stairs, Hiccup, up the stairs down the stairs!"  Max thundered all the way down the staircase and then zoomed all the way back up just when Hiccup reached the top step.  "FLY, HICCUP!"  Max seized Hiccup tightly in his arms, set his back against the handrail for guidance, and, before Stoick or Valka could stop him, scuttled swiftly sideways, dragging Hiccup with him.  He didn't even pause until they'd reached the floor below.  "Ta da~!"

 

Hiccup slowly lifted his face out of Max's shoulder and stared beyond him in complete astonishment.

 

"Not scary," Max proclaimed in satisfaction.

 

Valka reached them.  "Max!" she exclaimed, trying to figure out which emotion she ought to express.

 

"Hiccup down the stairs!"

 

"Y...Yes, I...my goodness, Max...."

 

Max dragged Hiccup to the kitchen, where he opened the refrigerator and pulled out an already-prepared tray of ants-on-a-log.  "Healthy snacks for growing bodies!"

 

"Wait, Max, is that for you?  Let's ask Alfred--"

 

"HEALTHY SNACKS FOR GROWING BODIES!  SUGAR IS BAD FOR YOU!"

 

Once they had found Alfred and gotten assurance that, yes, the ants-on-a-log snacks were indeed for the children to eat whenever they liked, they offered the tray back to Max.  Max was awkwardly trying to sit down, because Hiccup had collapsed and curled up on the floor, clinging so tightly to Max's leg that Max could barely move.

 

"Hiccup is UPSET!  Cooldown!"

 

"Yes, Hiccup is not very happy right now...."

 

Max licked up all the peanut butter and raisins in two gulps, then made a face at the celery.  "Yucky!  Healthy snacks for growing bodies!"  He nibbled at the celery.  "YUCKY!"  Throwing the stalk aside, he snatched another snack off the tray and poked it at Hiccup's mouth.  "Healthy snacks, Hiccup."

 

After a minute, Hiccup grasped the piece of food and held it close to his face, but didn't eat it.  Max picked a third snack off the tray and licked away all the peanut butter again.

 

"Max, why don't you try eating the celery with the peanut butter still on it?" Valka suggested.

 

"STICKY!"

 

"...You mean stringy?" she guessed.

 

"LOOK!"  Max insistently indicated the veins in the stalk.

 

"Yes, it's stringy.  Let's see...."  She started rummaging around in the refrigerator.  "Would you like some carrots instead?"

 

"Carrots!  Little rabbit nibble nibble yum!"

 

Hiccup set his snack on the floor so that he could pick the raisins off it one by one.  He touched his tongue to the peanut butter and nibbled at the celery.

 

"Hiccup, sit up, please."

 

He obeyed silently, practically shifting into Max's lap as he did so.

 

"Heavy."  Max laughed and made a show of trying to escape, then grew distressed and shoved Hiccup away.

 

"Max!"

 

Once the boys had eaten, Hiccup started moving around the quieter areas of the downstairs floor, running both hands along the walls as if mapping the perimeter.  Max soon grew bored with this, but when Hiccup refused to be deterred, Max complained in his personal language and then resolved himself, placing small objects in Hiccup's path and laughing when they were kicked aside.

 

"Max, don't do that, Hiccup might fall."

 

"Max, don't do that!" he repeated.  "HICCUP."  He started imitating Hiccup's task, though the sliding very quickly turned to slapping his palms against the wall as if he was playing a musical instrument.  He started dashing back and forth between Hiccup and the corner, laughing whenever he misjudged his stops and bumped into Hiccup.  The third time this happened, Hiccup grunted loudly in annoyance when he stumbled.

 

"Hiccuuuup!" Max whined.

 

Hiccup said something very soft and unintelligible to him.

 

"IT'S OKAY, HICCUP.  I'm a dragon, rawr!"

 

Ten minutes later, they were playing with blocks, each boy taking turns contributing to the pile.  Max's offerings were swift, sloppy, and random; Hiccup's were deliberate, stacking blocks upward rather than simply tossing them onto the pile.  Alfred had come up beside the Vasts to watch.  "He's so _calm_ ," he noted in mild amazement.

 

"You mean Max?"

 

"Usually he's bouncing off the walls from the minute he wakes up to the minute he falls asleep.  _This_ is...different.  Hiccup is good for him."

 

Stoick did not say aloud that it was the opposite that was in question here.

 

Hiccup's tower collapsed when it grew too tall.  Max laughed and remarked, "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down~"  Hiccup murmured something in response and set out a new block, starting to rebuild the tower.

 

"It's so amazing to see Hiccup play _with_ someone," Valka said wistfully.  "I've _never_ seen him respond to anyone the way he does to Max."

 

"At least the boy doesn't bite him anymore," Stoick grumbled.

 

Max mischievously poked at the tower to make it collapse again.  Hiccup abruptly seized his face in both hands.

 

"Sorry!  Bad Max!  Max is sorry!"  They didn't move for what seemed like a long time, Hiccup gripping Max and staring intently in a rare instance of direct eye contact, Max looking apprehensive and then sheepish and then happily submissive.  Neither of them spoke.  Then Hiccup let go of him and looked away dismissively and started building the tower again.  Max purred and leaned on him until Hiccup lost his balance and fell over.  After a moment, still lying there with Max sprawled on top of him, he reached out a hand to continue arranging blocks.

 

"Hiccup," Valka said, "five more minutes."

 

Hiccup abruptly propped himself up on his arms and stared at his mother, his mouth slightly open in dismay.

 

"Five more minutes, and then we're going home," Stoick confirmed.

 

Hiccup burst into tears.

 

"Hiccup?!" Max exclaimed.  "Hiccup is crying?!  Hiccup is upset?!"

 

Hiccup clutched him tightly.  Five minutes later, when his parents took hold of him, he went limp and didn't resist as he was pulled away from his friend, but he did lie bonelessly in the back seat of the car and kept up his demonstration of Utter Despair for hours.  Max, screaming, was picked up by Alfred and refused to be consoled.  "Max, you'll see Hiccup at school, okay?  Play time is over now, but it's all right, you'll see each other at school next week."

 

"Hiccuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!  Hiccuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup...!"

 

o.o.o

 

Author's Notes:  Writing this was a very random impulse. I've had a couple of other ideas for this AU for a while, but they both take place after Max is adopted, and I thought I ought to write at least one fic that takes place earlier.  Stoick isn't exactly thrilled about the idea of adding Toothless to the family, and this is pretty much the first time he's seen Hiccup & Toothless have sustained positive interaction in person.

 

Much thanks to nyarth lover, who anonymously reviewed _Gentle_!  I don't know if you ever saw my review reply on my FFN profile, but yeah, the armguards are a really good idea that I wish I'd thought of.  If/when I ever get around to editing _Gentle_ , I'll mention why Hiccup wasn't wearing armguards that day.  As far as medication, I have more than one reason for wanting to avoid the issue in my writing, so I'm pretty much pretending that meds don't exist except when they're necessary for the plot.  Sorry about that...!


End file.
